all in an inch: A fall foliage collage

November 03, 2011

A fall foliage collage

This is a great project for creating several cards with a variety of common theme stamps and an assortment of pigment inks.

All of the stamps used in this project are by Fred Mullet. If you haven't worked with his stamps before they are representations of the real thing because his signature stamps are from actual nature prints. And the wonderful Autumn Blessings calligraphy stamp is from Rubbermoon.

Create the foundation of the collage with squiggles and dots using a Krylon 18Kt. Gold Leaf pen. The gold will shimmer through all of the stamped layers.

Your goal is to create a stamped collage over an entire sheet of ivory card stock. It's up to you whether you stamp a full 8 1/2" X 11" or just a half sheet, but know the larger the paper, the more raw material you will have for cards.

Create each 'layer' by stamping each leaf randomly all over the sheet. Remember to change orientation of your stamp each time. This first layer uses the Lil Paper Birch stamp with Fig color pigment ink from Fresh Ink.

Next, the Lil Silver Birch with Honey.

(note: since pigment inks are very sticky and often slow to dry you may want to lightly heat set your work after each layer - this will prevent transfer of each ink onto the newest stamp)

The Flowering Ash Branch is stamped with Tuscan Olive.

As you continue to layer be sure and fill in the white spaces so you are getting good solid 'collage' coverage.

Lil Sweet Gum with Honey.

Lil'-maidenhair-fern

Finally stamp the Lil Maidenhair Fern with Pear.

Unless you began by stamping 'off' the edges you will want to cut a strip off the top getting rid of the white area at the very edge. Then, cut a 7/8" strip (above) from the top edge. Do you best to be precise because when you cut this strip into squares and paste them onto the Inchie Squares there will be a perfect 1/16" border around the edge of your photo squares.

Carefully trim the strip into 7/8" squares with a paper cutter. As you trim them out be sure to set them down in order and not mix them up. This will make it MUCH easier to match them up again as you are pasting them down on your card. For each card use 5 continuous squares, pasting them onto the black Inchie Squares. Set all 5 squares down on your card first before glueing. Arrange them exactly how you want them (use a centering ruler to position the middle one if desired) and then paste down one by one starting with the square in the middle.